20/20 Cold Spring Vision Team

Trails Cooperative Effort

To:
Chuck Wocken
Director, Parks Department
1802 County Road 137
Waite Park, MN 56387


April 28th, 2005


Dear Chuck,

On behalf of the HCP Alliance (Http://www.hcpalliance.org), I wish to strongly support the ROCORI trail. Healthy Community Partnerships (HCP) organizations have been organized and supported by the Initiative Foundation all around Minnesota and the HCP Alliance is a group of HCPs that have organized to explore projects that extend beyond and connect our communities.

John and Linda Peck (Rockville) and Duane Kuss (Cold Spring) have explained to us where the trail would and could go and the benefits to the region of such a path. Perhaps most attractive to those of us who live in the St. Joseph and Avon area are the possibilities of a larger trail that would connect the ROCORI trail to the Wobegon trail so that folks from the region could more easily recreate over longer distances.

The Rails to Trails program has been a godsend to citizens in Central Minnesota and we sincerely hope that the railroad would share use of its corridor to help connect segments of the trail. We also encourage negotiations with landowners to provide easements for this trail and for portions of land that connect trails with larger trail networks.

In sum, we are very excited about the vision of the Glacial Lakes State Trail and enthusiastically support your department’s efforts, Chuck, to make it a reality. Please let me know what we can do to express our support (we have no money, unfortunately) for this very worthwhile effort.

Sincerely,



Ernest Diedrich
Convener
HCP Alliance


Ernie Diedrich

Professor of Economics and
Environmental Studies
Simons 244 (SJU)
CSB/SJU
320-363-3518 (phone)
320-363-3298 (fax

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